Jason Plato secures Silverstone pole after titanic battle

Jason Plato emerged on top of a titanic battle to secure his first pole position in more than two years ahead of the penultimate rounds of the BTCC season at Silverstone.

The Power Maxed Racing man had topped the times in both free practice sessions at the wheel of his Vauxhall Astra and went into qualifying as many peoples tip to take a first pole since Knockhill 2017.

Early on, it was the BMW of Tom Oliphant that led the way before Plato made his move to the front, with the previous lap record held my Mat Jackson being smashed thanks to resurfacing work carried out at the Northamptonshire circuit earlier in the year.

A lap of 57.430s put the former champion on top of the pile but there was no chance to relax, with the chasing pack so close behind.

Old rival Matt Neal slotted into second place with a lap less then 0.060s slower than the Vauxhall to set up what looked to be an interesting front row, only for Chris Smiley to split the two late on at the wheel of his Civic Type R to take a second front row start of the campaign.

It left Neal to settle for third, with Tom Ingram also within a tenth of a second of the quickest time in fourth spot despite a spin in his Speedworks-run Toyota; where he was lucky to avoid nosing into the barriers.

Tom Oliphant was quickest BMW in sixth place, just ahead of team-mate Colin Turkington after the defending champion produced one of the qualifying performances of the season to lap just 0.138s off pole despite carrying maximum ballast on his 330i M Sport.

That meant Turkington was able to out-qualify fellow BMW driver Andrew Jordan, who found himself down in 14th after a number of drivers improved in the closing minutes, and also the Honda of Dan Cammish – which will line up in P7 having been second in both practice sessions.

Ash Sutton, Josh Cook and Senna Proctor rounded out the top ten, whilst every driver bar the two MGs of Rob Smith and Sam Osborne was able to qualify within a second of pole.